I love the quote by Karren Brady in Saturday’s Guardian where she talks about the fact that “Doing it all means having two personalities – a home personality and a work one.” She claims the trick is to be very organised and have a clear divide about who you are.

It’s a fact that’s true for all working mums especially in this economic climate where the pressure to be more and do more at work is on the up. Having worked from home for a number of years I think this quote should also be the mantra for all mums who work from home.

While there are many benefits to being able to work from my house (no commute, no work wardrobe, no office politics) it isn’t a perfect solution to childcare and it can be near impossible to keep one life from overlapping onto the other.

While I always have an ear to what’s happening downstairs (currently a loud sibling fight over who’s hitting who with the remote), I am also guilty of having one eye on work when I’m looking after the kids. And I know it’s a battle many mums who work from home have.

Currently around 3.1 million people in the UK are regular home-based workers, with the great majority of these being mums who either work a part of the week at home or run their businesses from home. For most the reason is simple – money! It’s cheaper to work from home and juggle childcare then pay all your earnings to a childminder/nursery, plus it makes for happier kids.

For friends who have to go to work it looks like an enviable position and mostly it is. However, if you’re tempted by it be warned, it’s impossible to only work set hours and as Karren says you have to be super organised just to cope with the pressure of both lives simultaneously bearing down on you.

My trick is to have that clear divide both at 10 am and 5pm by closing my office door. In the morning I leave all my domestic debris outside the door and at night all my tech gadgets behind the door. That way I can’t tempted to finish ‘one last thing’ whether it is laundry or work.
So how do you keep your work and home life separate? I’d be interested to know.

Anita

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I’m Anita, a mum to two under 5s, a blogger, journalist and author. I’ll be blogging about all things family related whether that’s ranting about legislation, or a general heads up about something to make family life happier and less stressful.

2 Responses to Work Life Mum Versus Home Life Mum

Hi, Anita! It may be easier to separate work from home life as you say if you don’t have too little kids who, say, need all your attention and time during your working hours because they still don’t go to kindergarten but you need to work because no other way of earning a living at the moment is possible… I managed to juggle both work from home and care about my three little children parallel to work from home but it was terribly difficult.

Catherine, I couldn’t agree more. It’s not easy or sometimes possible to separate work and home life with under 3’s and even under 5’s. I find if I set up desk space for my 4 year old in my office she’ll happily colour while I work (with the inevitable incessant chattering) but with my one year old it’s impossible so I have to work while he naps if I don’t have childcare. What irks me is friends often think I work because I love it, which I do, but I really work because like most mums I have to.